If you are Steve, your day is full of building custom integrations, drinking loads of coffee, and riding motorcycles – because why have just one Harley when you can have two? Keep reading to find out how Steve spends his time as Senior Integration Consultant at Venn Technology.
As one of Venn Technology’s Senior Integration Consultants, Steve is responsible for problem solving and automating other people’s businesses using technology.
5:00 AM: For the last 10 years, I’ve started my day with an hour and a half of pure agony in the gym. One of my bucket list items after moving stateside – I’m originally from England – was to compete in the Arnold Classic. That’s been put on hold since the pandemic hit, but it’s still a dream of mine so I look forward to entering the next chance I get.
A poster of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger as a bodybuilder serves as motivation in Steve’s at-home gym.
7:45 AM: I have a short 15-minute commute, which is only made longer because I like to take the scenic route across Lake Grapevine on the days I can ride one of my two motorcycles. How do I pick which one I take out? Right now… the newest one! In addition to entering the Arnold Classic, another one of my bucket list items after moving to the U.S. was to buy a Harley-Davidson.
Steve is the proud owner of two motorcylces since moving to the U.S.
8:00 AM: My typical work day begins with client discovery calls, and I’m usually on five or six different projects at any given time, so I have plenty of work to keep me occupied. It’s nice to have calls in the morning because it leaves the afternoon to actually do the work of building integrations in Workato.
9:00 AM: The purpose of our discovery calls is to discuss the client’s problem and what they want the end result to be. Since our expertise is in connecting Sage Intacct to virtually anything with an API, clients come to us to help integrate their accounting system to other business applications. My job as a consultant is basically to reverse-engineer the business process.
Since our expertise is in connecting Sage Intacct to virtually anything with an API, clients come to us to help integrate their accounting system to other business applications. My job as a consultant is basically to reverse-engineer the business process.
12:30 PM: I walk over to Grapevine’s Brew and Batter for my mid-day coffee. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where they have it sitting on the counter ready for me when I walk in. It’s nothing fancy, just a normal black coffee and milk.
1:00 PM: My afternoons are for building integrations. Whenever we have our next client call, I demo it from point A to point B while they give me their feedback. Once clients see their integrations in action, they’re usually pretty excited. This also sometimes means additional stakeholders get involved, so that can lead to additional meetings and iterations of the workflow. Once the client accepts it, then we hand it over for testing. I also handle all the bug fixes up until Go-Live. After Go-Live, the client transitions into what we refer to as Hypercare, and I’ll manage any bugs if they occur during that time as well.
Once clients see their integrations in action, they’re usually pretty excited.
3:00 PM: I‘m also involved in a few custom development projects internally at Venn. I’ve helped to build a new payment portal between Sage Intacct, Stripe and Plaid with a lot more functionality than what’s currently available in the marketplace. It breaks up the client work and is a direct contribution to our core value of “One Team.”
5:00 PM: I really like the fact that I can turn off at 5:00 when I’m done with my work for the day. This was not always the case before Venn. The work and environment as a whole is rewarding, stress-free, and I’ve not gotten nearly as many gray hairs as in any of my prior roles.
6:00PM: Many of my evenings are spent exploring Texas and planning travel. The final USA bucket list item is to visit all 50 states in America. (At the time of this interview, Steve has visited 38 states.)
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